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00 | Everyone needs a Karen · Spacious Success

• 0:00
  Hi, I'm Dr. Christie Goodwin, a neuroperformance scientist, speaker and executive coach who
• 0:11
  learned the hard way the chasing success can come at a cost.
• 0:16
  After burnout landed me in hospital, I made it my mission to help ambitious women who
• 0:22
  are done training their health and happiness for high performance.
• 0:27
  On spacious success, I share science-backed strategies and real stories to help you flourish
• 0:35
  as a female at work and beyond so you can stop paying the success tax.
• 0:42
  Hey friend, welcome to the first official episode of the spacious success podcast.
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  Yes, there is a trailer that you may have already heard where I'll tell you what this
• 0:52
  show is all about.
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  This one is about why it exists, why I finally hit record and play on this podcast.
• 1:02
  Why now?
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  And that reason is a person, a really important person and her name was Karen.
• 1:09
  You see, this is about the list that never got ticked for years.
• 1:13
  You see, launch the podcast, lived on my business goals list year in year out, it featured
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  on my quarterly goal plans and in every planning and strategy session.
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  For years, it simply never happened.
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  Sound familiar?
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  Every January, every quarter, in fact every single strategy session, Karen and I would sit
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  and map out my business goals and there it was again.
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  Launch a podcast and every time, guess what happened?
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  It got bumped, I sidelined it, I skipped it, it was parked, it was often eclipsed by
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  urgent emails, speaking geeks, travel, client deadline, sick kids and I told myself that
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  I'd get to it someday, but here's the harsh truth that I've had to face this year.
• 2:03
  Someday isn't always promised.
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  We tell ourselves that we'll get to the things that really matter once things calm down.
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  Spoiler alert, things don't often calm down.
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  They just, as I've discovered, a shift shape.
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  You see, Karen passed away earlier this year and it was sudden and tragic, completely unexpected.
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  We'd had our usual weekly meeting on Friday on Zoom, we triaged out to do list, she was
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  laughing, energised, excited, her sister was coming to visit her that next week and then
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  on Sunday morning, I got the call from her husband and just like that, she was gone.
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  It didn't make sense and if I'm honest, it still doesn't make sense.
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  San Harris once said, I want to get this right, no matter how many times you do something,
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  they will come a day when you do it for the last time.
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  There'll be that last bedtime story with your kids, that last walk with your sister,
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  final hug with your parents, a last call from a friend, all the everyday moments that we
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  simply just take for granted, one day, we wish that we could go back and just do them again.
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  That Friday Zoom, it was our last conversation, but I didn't know it and you often never do,
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  but you can live like you do and Karen certainly did that.
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  She didn't just manage my business, she saw the whole of my life and in the middle of a chaotic
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  week, she'd often ask me to pause and say, Christie, what does success in this season of your life
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  look like? How can we make future Christie happy? Not next year, not when things come down,
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  but in this season, because real success isn't just about what you accomplish.
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  It's really all about how you live and what you experience while you're accomplished.
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  Her passing cracked something open in me because I realized I'd been deferring too much in my life,
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  not just the podcast by next book, the one day priorities our next family holiday,
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  the girls weekend away. The ladies lunch, I see it everywhere,
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  with the women like you, women like me that are delaying joy, deferring our health,
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  settling for a power down low res version of life, waiting for some day that may never come.
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  Karen's passing wasn't just a loss, it was a gut punch, it was a recalibration, because some day
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  it's simply isn't guaranteed. At a funeral, the chapel was overflowing. Old friends,
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  neighbors, colleagues, sporting clit-t team members, parents from school,
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  teammates, online friends, even the Zoom room, hit capacity.
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  And I realized that not one person there at the chapel or online was there because she answered
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  emails fast or she colour-coded calendars, although she did do that. They were there because
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  of how she lived and who she was, because Karen cared deeply. She wisely invested her time,
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  her energy, her attention in the people and the passions that mattered the most to her.
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  You see, our time, energy and attention are our most important human currencies,
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  and I've discovered that good health is a privilege and not a promise.
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  You see, we get 4,000 Sundays to live and laugh and enjoy, and every Sunday that passes
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  is one that you simply just don't get back. You see, Karen had a knack for living lifefully.
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  She never let her work swallow her identity. She didn't believe that her worth was tied to
• 6:06
  her productivity and her output. She made magic in the margins, because she was intentional
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  about prioritising and protecting those margins. Every month she learned something new,
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  pottery, painting, sewing. She loved laughing at my craft attempts. Like the time,
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  Karen was a really thoughtful gifter. She gave me a gift voucher for an abstract art class.
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  My son looked at my canvas that I was proudly showing him and he asked,
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  Mum, why did you paint a penis? It wasn't a penis, it was my abstract interpretation.
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  Thanks for that one, Karen. She baked. I distinctly remember the joy when she bought
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  her thermomix and she renovated her kitchen. Both things brought Karen so much joy.
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  You see, Karen extracted joy from life's simple pleasures.
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  She savored the slow. She found simple abundances. She adored her husband and her son and her dog.
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  She hosted. She savored. She cared deeply. She selected and sent the most thoughtful gifts.
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  She made time for long lunches and spontaneous coffees for deep friendships,
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  and she built a life that breathed. She built a life where success didn't cost her well-being.
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  Karen experienced what I call, spacious success. And she wanted that. She earned for that for other
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  women too. And so this podcast finally is my way of honouring her and finally ticking that
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  thing that's been on my to-do list for years. Karen fiercely believed in helping women to stop
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  paying what I refer to as the success tax. It's the hidden cost of our success. When we pursue
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  achievement and it quietly erodes our health, our peace and the most important connections
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  and relationships, our relentless pursuit of success. It's success with a side of our sacrifice,
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  and I see far too many women paying success tax. The exhaustion, the constant stress,
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  the chronic depletion that we've come to accept as normal. We've been living in overwhelm,
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  and it has regulated state for so long that many of us don't even recognise it,
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  and it's unsustainable. As modern women, we're drowning in infobesity, endless,
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  conflicting advice, most of it written for men, and then repackaged for women as an afterthought.
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  As if we're just small men, with smaller appetites, unpredictable, fluctuating hormones,
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  and ever expanding to-do lists. But while the world keeps offering one size fits men advice,
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  a wide, gender-world-being gap is quietly cracking, wide open, and I see far too many accomplished
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  women slipping through the gap. I see it in my brilliant, capable friends who are quietly
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  burning out, behind closed doors. I see it in my executive coaching clients and vicious,
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  high-performing, talented women holding it all together. But barely. We are tired.
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  We are stressed. We are overwhelmed. We're tired of feeling like success must come with a
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  side of depletion. But we also don't have the bandwidth for more information.
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  Ladies, we don't have time or tolerance, be honest.
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  For three-hour podcasts, we're sick of listening to Bro's Science podcast or watching
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  Instagram Reels showing elaborate three-hour morning routines that simply don't fit in to our
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  reality. And honestly, don't match our biology. We don't want louder advice. We want a new
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  way to live, a way to thrive. One that's actually built for us as females.
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  So I want you to know this podcast is for the ambitious, accomplished woman who wants success,
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  who wants to live a great life, but she's no longer willing to pay the cost of her health,
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  her peace or relationships. It's for the woman who is ready to stop chasing the version of
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  success that Instagram sells her and start designing one that feels like hers. It's for the
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  high-achieving woman who's tired of what? What muckling her way to the top and who's ready to rise
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  without abandoning herself. What spacious success means to me is a show that isn't about doing more.
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  It's not adding to your infobicity, but it's about choosing differently, living differently.
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  It's about redefining success on your terms without burning out and without burning your body
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  or your business to the ground. We're going to explore what spacious success feels like for you.
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  Not for your friends, not for your mum. We're going to talk about how to build success
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  without paying a success tax. We're going to unpack how your human operating system,
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  your HOS, which is how you are biologically designed to function and flourish, works best
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  and why it matters for you. I'm going to explore the real science behind stress,
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  recovery and sustainable performance. And we're going to hear the stories from amazing
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  women who've created spacious success and they live full lives without self-sacrifice as their
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  entry fee. I want to remind you that if you've been waiting for Sunday, let Karen's life,
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  let her legacy and her unexpected passing be your nudge, because Sunday isn't promised.
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  You deserve a life that feels powered up one where you are a high-res version,
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  not one where you defer things until things calm down. That's how Karen lived,
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  and that's what she believed in. And that's the legacy? I believe she'd want to leave behind.
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  Karen wouldn't want us paying small or waiting for a perfect moment.
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  She'd want us to live and lead boldly, to live fully, to protect the margins,
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  because that's where magic is made. This podcast is for every woman listening
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  who's ready to stop paying a success tax and start living spatiously. So let me ask you
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  what does success in this season of your life look like? Not what your industry idolises?
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  Certainly. Not what your LinkedIn profile might suggest.
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  Not the version that your family, your friends, or your colleagues are expecting or pursuing,
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  yours. What's your version? Now if you can't answer that without referencing your job title,
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  your income, your inbox, or your parenting status, this podcast is for you.
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  And the next episode, I'm going to share the story of my own code red moment,
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  when my life collapsed, and my body pulled on the emergency break and forced me to rethink
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  everything that I believed in about success and productivity. It's going to be raw,
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  it will be honest, it's probably a bit confronting, and it might just be the nudge that you need.
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  This episode, and in fact, this entire podcast is for Karen, to honor the way that she lived.
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  For the lessons that she left behind, and for reminding me and now hopefully you
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  that everyone needs a Karen in their life, Karen, I hope you know the ripples that you've made.
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  Let's begin.